The lowdown on editing
programs for Etsy shop owners
So you’ve created a
great set of images, obtained the best lighting possible in your
environment but something looks a bit off. Don’t worry this is
fairly normal until you get it all figured out (it sometimes happens
even when you have it all figured out). While perfect lighting the
first time is the ultimate goal, things don’t always go the way you
planned.
Keep in mind that when
shopping online the quality and presentation of the image (your
product) is everything. Potential customers will look elsewhere if
your image is not in focus, is too dark, too light, unrecognizable or
amateurish.
Let’s explore a few
things that can cause your image to look less than what you had in
mind.
The first image in each set is one that you should not use.
The second is a rendition that is acceptable for use.
The color of your product doesn’t
look quite right
Product is not cropped tight enough to
show off your product
It’s out of focus (this is always
reason for a reshoot)
The list of things that can go wrong
can seem to be endless (but hey, that’s how we learn). The first
step is to pay attention to the details and “get it right in
camera”. You quickly learn how valuable this is once you realize
how much time you could save in editing.
Speaking of editing, let’s look at 3
programs to help edit your images along with one program that I
believe is a must for anyone that is serious about organizing and
editing your images.
#1 – Adobe
Lightroom
If you take lots of photos and lots of different angles
of the same image the best program is Adobe Lightroom (there is
nothing else close to this for the features, price and
functionality).
The program runs $149* and while that may seem
like a lot of money it will save you hours upon hours of editing
time.
Here are features that I love about
Lightroom:
•Catalogs your images complete with keywords so that
you can find them easily.
•You can adjust one image and apply
those same changes to the rest of your like images with the click of
a button. Let’s say that all of your photos are too dark; just fix
the first one then apply that fix to the rest of the images that are
too dark with the click of a button.
•Easy one click dust and
spot removal.
•Simple cropping tool that allows you to quickly
crop to the correct size.
•Allows you to make “collections”
of images that make access even quicker. Say you just photographed
that great new line of red rose paper flowers along with a line of
orange holiday greeting cards during the same photo shoot. You won’t
need to sell the holiday cards utill the holiday season, but the red
paper flowers are really hot for the wedding season and you need to
work on them pronto. Just create a collection named “red paper
flowers” drag the images into that folder (the images still remain
in the original spot but the program creates a virtual copy). This
helps you find the red paper flower images so fast you will never
want to go back to the old way again.
•Non-destructive editing.
Say what??? Non destructive editing means that any changes you make
in Lightroom can be undone with the click of a button. This means you
never hit the save button only to realize that you overwrote your
original image by mistake.
•You can quickly and easily post to
social media sites such to Flickr, Facebook and more with a click of
the button.
•The program makes it a snap to export the correct
sized images to use in your online shop.
There are so many other features that
make Lightroom the best program for an Etsy user that there isn’t
time or space in this blog to point them all out. While the learning
curve is a bit steep, I personally find it easier to use then
Photoshop Elements or the Photoshop CS editing programs.
Editing tools that you may have but are
unaware of:
#2 iPhoto for Mac owners
If you are
a Mac user you certainly have iphoto that came with your Mac. iPhoto
is an easy and cheap way to edit. It does a fine job. I find it much
better to make the corrections manually and stay away from auto
correct features.
#3 Photo Gallery for PC Windows 8
users
If you are a Windows 8 user Photo Galley was included. This
is a basic program that will help out if your image is pretty close
and just needs a tweak.
Without sounding like an ad for Adobe
Lightroom, I suggest spending the cash to purchase this program. It
will pay for itself in no time at all!
Written by
Scott Board
